


We, Together

by Saziikins



Series: Evolutions [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, F/M, M/M, POV John Watson, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Sherlock is good with kids, The Six Thatchers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saziikins/pseuds/Saziikins
Summary: John takes Rosie to Baker Street, fully intent that it will not happen again. He watches, and sees things he never could have expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE SIX THATCHERS.
> 
> Do not read if you do not want to be spoiled.
> 
> SPOILERS LIE AHEAD. READ BEYOND THIS POINT AT YOUR PERIL.
> 
> This came to me while I was lying in bed last night, and it's a testament to how strong the idea settled in my brain because it took no time at all to write. I've written a John POV fic around four times now. One of those times was quite pro-John. This is probably the most horrible version of him I've created. Still, I hope I've been somewhat forgiving...ish. 
> 
> This continues many, many months after The Constant. About as many months as it takes for an intelligent kid to start talking. You probably don't need to read it first, but you might as well, 'eh? Perhaps I'll be able to fill the middle part in at some point too.

He’s still holding her. He’s been holding her for at least half an hour, ever since John brought her round. Sherlock has her cradled against his chest in a secure but gentle hold. He is still looking at her as though she may vanish in a moment, his smile doesn’t fade, not once, not when he looks at her. When he turns to John, it’s with the same wariness he once gave to an old classmate, back on The Blind Banker case, all those years ago. 

Sherlock’s laptop is a screen full of animals and he’s naming them and telling Rosie to point them out. “Dog!” he says, and she laughs and points. Sherlock clicks a clicker.

It’s probably a clicker for training puppies, and goodness knows why Sherlock’s suddenly got a puppy clicker and why he thinks it’s suitable for Rosie. And John wants to tell him off, and take his daughter back, and away, and out. But there’s so much shining happiness in Sherlock’s eyes, and Rosie’s too, if he’s honest with himself, that he sinks onto the couch instead. 

He winces as he sits on something, and pulls out a Lego brick from under his backside. That’s not Rosie’s, and John doubts it’s Sherlock’s, though you never really know with him, and he has found more bizarre things in this flat. He won't ask about it though, not yet. Not when Sherlock’s saying “cat!” and Rosie is exclaiming “ca’!” in return. She’s pointing at the goat, so, no clicker, but Sherlock is still staring at her like she’s a minor miracle. 

John’s already on edge. He saw Sherlock for the first time in goodness knows how long just three weeks ago when they met for a brief coffee. It was a prelude to Sherlock being allowed in Rosie’s life again. John still sees Mary’s death every time he looks at his best, no, his former, best friend. 

He grits his teeth and keeps his tongue, because he knows this is good for Rosie. He hates leaving the house; he sees Mary everywhere he walks, so his daughter only goes out with Molly and Mrs Hudson, while John takes time to clean the house and tries to sleep. He’s afraid he’ll stunt her emotional and educational growth by not letting her see the world and meet new people. He’s afraid Sherlock will stunt it even more. But the animal game is working for now, and she’s close to saying ‘cat’ so perhaps this visit is worth it for that alone. 

He won’t make a habit of this though, no chance, no sir. He’s not ready to forgive, and though Sherlock has apologised, John’s heard enough of his sorries to last a lifetime. He doesn’t believe a single damn one anymore. 

He’s not expecting them to be joined by company. But it comes through the door anyway, without knocking, in the form of Greg Lestrade. Greg shoots John a hard look, but says “hi, John” with his usual casual, friendly tone. 

“Greg,” John replies. 

But Greg has already turned his attention to Rosie and to Sherlock, and he’s retrieving his phone and starting to film them. John wants to snatch it out of his hand and delete the footage, because Greg assumes too much, but he sits further back in the chair. 

Mary should be here. And Sherlock should have protected her, he vowed he would. And Greg was there too, when it happened, and what did he do? He stood there. Stood perfectly still and stared. Anyway, it’s clearer than ever where Greg’s loyalties lie, and it doesn’t matter that they spent two years grieving for Sherlock, united that way. No, Greg’s let it all go, because somehow, even after a sodding decade of knowing Sherlock, he’s still not cottoned onto the man’s lies. 

Sherlock doesn’t even know Greg’s name for fuck’s sake. 

He eyes them as Greg moves to Sherlock’s side and strokes Rosie’s face, and she grabs his finger and then laughs as he looks shocked and makes a cooing noise.

“Stop distracting her,” Sherlock says, though he’s smiling. “She still hasn’t found the goat.”

“Ga!” Rosie says.

Sherlock tries to turn her attention back to the screen. “Point to the goat, Rosie.” 

But Rosie’s more interested in Greg’s waggling finger than the screen now, and Sherlock rolls his eyes and watches them both. “I suppose what you’re doing has some educational use,” he decides, watching Greg’s finger too. “Something to do with following motions with her eyes, her brain working out how things move…”

Greg grins and then looks at Sherlock’s hand. He scoffs. “You’re using the clicker on her?”

“It was working. Positive reinforcement.”

“Yeah, for dogs.”

“And it’s surprisingly effective on babies.” Sherlock frowns and looks around. “Where is she anyway?” 

“Down with Mrs Hudson,” Greg answers, before John can point out the obvious and reminds him that Rosie is on his lap. “Mrs H took one look at her, and decided she wanted to give her a tour. I don’t know why you have to take a puppy for a tour but… I wasn’t going to argue.”

“Puppy?” John asks.

“Yes, there’s a puppy now,” Sherlock replies, distracted as he moves Rosie around on his lap so she can focus on Greg properly. “She’s called Viola.” Sherlock shoots Greg a scathing look. “Not my choice, but that’s what she answers to now. Where’s…?”

“Also with Mrs Hudson,” Greg answers. Rosie squishes her hand into Greg’s cheek and he laughs and then pulls a face. “John, I think your kid needs her nappy changed.”

Sherlock recoils, and holds Rosie out. “All yours,” he says, relinquishing his responsibility again, because that’s what Sherlock does. John rolls his eyes and takes his child and the bag to the bathroom. 

He hears running feet in the hall. He hears an exclamation of laughter from the living room. He frowns to himself and changes his daughter's nappy and tries not to think too hard about what’s going on with Greg’s puppy and the clicker… No doubt Greg got a puppy to ease some loneliness. And now Sherlock’s decided to replace Rosie with a dog he’ll never feed or clean up after or walk or even remotely care for… He'll just provide her with clicking sounds because she’s learned how to smell blood and follow the scent of a decapitated supermodel or something...

When John returns, Mrs Hudson is on the sofa, and a puppy, a golden brown dog with drooping ears and big black eyes sits at her feet. “No more treats,” she says to the creature, holding up her hands. “You get spoiled enough already. No, Vi, don’t look at me like that.”

“This must be Viola,” John says as Rosie stretches her hands out towards the puppy. “No, Rosie,” he says. 

“Da!” she exclaims.

“No, dogs are dangerous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock says from the kitchen. “I trained her, she’s perfect.”

It’s only as John turns around, careful, because Rosie hates spinning, that he sees Sherlock, Greg and… a girl. They’re standing around the kitchen table, peering at something, and speaking in hushed voices. 

“What’s going on?” John asks, as he takes a seat beside Mrs Hudson.

“That’s Greg’s daughter,” Mrs Hudson says, stroking Viola’s head and smiling as the dog lies down at her feet and yawns. “She comes once a week, sometimes on Tuesdays and sometimes on Fridays and she and Sherlock…” She raises her eyebrows, as though she does not approve of what happens on Tuesdays and Fridays.

“They…?” John prompts.

“Well, Sherlock teaches her how to be a detective and they do experiments together.”

“I didn’t know Greg had a daughter…” John mutters. Mrs Hudson takes Rosie from him, and she coos over her. 

John turns away from Mrs Hudson and watches the three of them instead. The girl, with dark hair in a plait, stands between both men and she’s laughing. “Silly!” she exclaims. “Look closer!”

Sherlock straightens and holds his hands up in the air. “It’s a mystery,” he says. “The biggest one I’ve ever seen. We must solve this. John Watson!” he spins around and points at him. “We have a murder on our hands. Was the Sponge killed by the gun or the lead piping?”

John stares at him. “What?”

“It’s a game, John. Abi made it.” Sherlock gestures to the girl. “A real murder mystery, my mind is being tested to the limit.” He catches sight of Rosie again, and his face softens. 

John feels an ache, a desperate surge of nostalgia and longing to be by Sherlock’s side solving a case. But he pushes it down and turns his attention back to Greg and his daughter. Greg’s watching him with wary eyes, with a visible displeasure John doesn’t think he’s ever seen on that man’s face before. He’s not wanted here, he realises. Not by Greg. But Greg looks to the table and his daughter and calls out to John. “Come on then, John Watson. Perhaps it takes a doctor’s touch to solve this tough case.”

Sherlock’s eye twitches as he watches John, as though he senses John’s reluctance, as though he’s expecting John to notice something, to deduce the obvious. But John strolls past and to the table, where a box is set on its side. A sponge, with red paint on it, is lying on the bottom. There’s dots of red paint along the back. Like a blood splatter pattern, he thinks, and wonders whether this young, innocent-looking girl is going to turn out to be a killer with Sherlock as a mentor and…

John steps back. “I’ll leave it to the professionals,” he says. He hurries backwards to his seat. “Time for Rosie to be getting back, I think.”

Sherlock’s face falls but he takes it with grace and heads over to Mrs Hudson. He kisses the top of Rosie’s head, and touches her cheek and whispers inaudible words to her. 

Rosie’s eyes are fixed on him, as though she sees something she likes there… loves there. As much as a child that age can possibly understand the things she does and does not like. “Do’!” Rosie exclaims.

“Yes, dog,” Sherlock agrees, stroking Viola’s head. “I hope I see you soon Rosie.” He reaches out and shakes her tiny hand. He turns back to John. “I hope to see her soon.”

John takes a long breath. “Today was… okay,” he admits. 

“Good.” Sherlock bites his lip. “John…”

John takes a step back. “We’re not talking about this. Not in front of people.”

Sherlock, apparently chastised, takes a step back himself. “Right,” he mutters, and, with one fleeting look at Rosie, he returns to the table. He picks Greg’s daughter up from around her middle, and she squeals with laugher. He spins her round, and Viola runs over and bounces around Sherlock’s legs while Greg rolls his eyes. “So much for teaching Vi not to do that,” Greg says. “Viola. Down. Down, girl. For goodness sake, she never listens to me. Did you teach her that too?”

Sherlock laughs. “Family trait,” he says. “We don’t listen to your dad, do we Abs?”

“No!” the girl says, sticking her tongue out.

“You get to go to bed 20 minutes later if you say I’m the best,” Greg tells his daughter.

Sherlock tuts. “Bribery, Greg, really?”

Greg grins. “You play dirty, so do I.”

“Daddy’s the best,” Abi decides. “And then Sherlock. Then Viola.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Sherlock says. He puts her down, and she sits on the floor and calls Viola over to her. Viola sits in front of her, tail wagging. Abi hugs her, and Viola wags her tail more and does nothing to suggest she minds the child holding onto her. 

John slings his bag over his shoulder and picks Rosie up. His eyes flicker back to Sherlock, and to Greg, who is studying Sherlock’s face. “You’ve got baby food on you,” Greg says. Sherlock wipes it off his cheek, and then smears it over Greg’s jacket. Greg stares at him. “Oh great,” he says. “Thanks, Sherlock. Mature as ever.” But a smile threatens. It breaks over Greg’s face seconds later, and he squeezes Sherlock’s hand, a brief, brief squeeze, and then he’s kneeling down with his daughter and his dog.

But John knows. Something was remiss straight away, with the clicker for Greg’s puppy, the piece of Lego, clearly from Greg’s daughter… and them. The way they look at each other, and smile and… John’s been called an idiot before, probably correctly, but he’s not a complete fool and even he can see something when it’s right there in front of his face. “When did that happen?” John asks Mrs Hudson, pointing to them. 

“What happen?” Mrs Hudson follows John’s eyeline and looks between Sherlock and Greg. “Oh, I don’t know," she says, smiling, pleased. "You know how it is. Somethings are always there, I suppose.”

John swallows. “Right. Come on Rosie.” He walks to the door and she starts to cry. He goes to tell her to stop, but then Sherlock’s at his side, and is handing her a cuddly duck toy. The tears stop as she takes it. John turns to Sherlock, hesitates. “We’ll come back,” he says. “Next week, maybe.”

“We’d like that,” Sherlock replies.

John hears that. ‘We’. He nods once, and heads to the car. He hears just three words then over and over: ‘We’d like that’. ‘We’d like that’. ‘We’d like that’.

_I was a ‘we’ once_ , he thinks. _You took it away from me._

His own betrayal to Mary rears its ugly head again, grips his gut, confronts him with a stark reality he has spent months trying to ignore. It’s pain. It’s pain all over every inch of him, swimming in his veins, a deep, unforgiving guilt. But a laugh from Rosie brings him back. He thinks he hears a laugh from upstairs in Sherlock’s flat too. He thinks he hears a chorus of laughs.

His own house is quiet now, except when his child cries. He’ll be back to Baker Street, John decides, to see if he is allowed to create his own place within that ‘we’. 

It’s time to try to forgive.

Deep down in his heart, he knows Mary would have wanted it that way.


End file.
